[lonelyasacloud]

The core point - that it's politically convenient to ban things for "other people", especially if they cannot vote you out - is well taken. And I share the scepticism about whether "do something" politics leads to good legislation. However, it is most definitely not hypocritical to have different rules for children and adults; the bodies and minds of children are not fully developed and there are many instances where research indicates they are both more prone to damage and unable to make effective judgement as to their own actions.

As to a social media ban making sense for children: should not the precautionary principle apply? To this end, who has the vested interests and deeper pockets to fund research backing the status quo? And yet where is the research indicating social media is good news for children?

[br121]

In the article is mentioned gambling, and how the rules are more stringent to children, but rules exists for both, and were put in place together. It seems to me (but I don't have social media, don't watch TV, and am not from UK, so I may just have missed that, so please correct me if that's the case) that the current discourse on social media is all about ban for under 16, but with no consideration on damage control for adults, so it's the "do somethings, but not to voters" situation. To your second point, we don't have research indicating social media is good for adults as well, so shouldn't the same precautionary principle apply for both (maybe with different level of precaution)?